Tag: Women

When I finally got to a clearing where I could see a view of the valley, I’d traveled a couple miles down a long gravel road. There, a single empty car was parked off to the side. Standing alone and taking in the view was a young woman. We gave each other a cursory acknowledgment and continued doing our own things.

Immediately, I was surprised to see a lone woman out there. Isn’t that funny?

What did my surprise mean? Obviously I know that women do things by themselves. Am I just not accustomed to seeing them in out of the way places? Aside from surprise, I also had a sense of pride that caught me off guard. There was no one out along a dusty, dirty track but us. Neither of us special, or superhuman, or anything. Just two average girls, being normal in the world.

Clearly, I need to see more solo women out doing their thing. So much so that I won’t even pick up on the fact that they’re women. Get to it, ladies!

When I left aboard the ferry on Sunday morning, I still had to shake the sleep loose from my eyes. Though I’d been awake for hours and wanted to go riding, I wasn’t exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Some days you just aren’t “on.”

After loading into the belly of the beast, I went up stairs and stood on the back deck of the boat. The shoreline slipped away in our wake. A man and woman stood close together at the railing. As they talked he kept reaching towards her, his hand brushed across the small of her back, his fingers moved along her arm – they shared a deep connection.

She was lovely – golden blonde hair swept back in a carefree way, loose strands dancing on the breeze. Her skin was tanned like honey and her green stripey sundress fluttered in the wind. The two of them flashed smiles at each other as though no one else in the world existed. I felt like a voyeur observing a secret held between the palms of two perfect people.

Watching them made me feel lonely. Nine o’clock on a Sunday morning is way too early for those types of feelings. That sleepy residue that was hanging around seemed to amplify everything I was feeling 10-times over.

It was hard not to want a taste of what was shared between those two people. Instead, I stood alone and staring, burdening myself with doubt. Rather than feeling like a superhero about to embark on an adventure, in my riding clothes I was dirty and man-ish and gross when I just wanted to be the beautiful girl in the stripey green dress. I believed in the green dress.

Fuck.

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that you can’t be the girl in the dress and the girl in the dirty superhero riding suit at the same time. But as much as I lamented wanting to be that beautiful girl, I’d made my choice long ago.

“Adventure is just a personal thing, I decided, it means whatever you want it to. To me it means having a go at something that might be exciting or difficult, just to see if I can.”

Sometimes, I get caught up in the idea that an adventure is something specific – that it has a scale, a certain amount of suffering and time required to undertake it. In reality though, most times I don’t really buy into that idea at all. I think any ‘rules’ regarding what an adventure is, are the residue of someone else’s life on me. Comparing yourself to other people can be poisonous.